Installing windows... USB or CD?

Hi all.

My Acer currently has Linux, but I want to scrap it and install Windows. I have a Win2000 CD and an XP Pro upgrade CD. Now, I know there's various guides around detailing how to install Windows from a USB stick, but these look very time consuming and potentially error prone - plus none of these guides are for Win2000 so I have no idea if it will work. So some questions:

1) Firstly, if I was to buy an external USB CD drive (you can get them on Ebay for a tenner) will this work exactly like it does on my PC, and save me a hell of a lot of hassle?

2) I've already tried to use the USB stick, by copying the CD ISO onto it (using unetbootin) and booting from it. However when it boots I just get a screen saying "Default" and some techy options.... /ubnkern initrd=/ubninit. Is there anything simple I can do that may help with this, or should I stick to my option 1?


Thanks for any help.

 

Using an external CD/DVD-RW is just like using a built in one on your PC. Apart from you'll want to plug it in before booting the computer (so the BIOS recognises it) and of course you'll want to adjust your BIOS settings to boot from the CD/DVD-RW. You may alternatively have the F12 option to choose which device to boot from instead of adjusting your BIOS settings.

By the sounds of it the USB stick you've made is booting to Grub (or some other boot manager, Linux and I aren't on speaking terms so I can't say for sure what you're using).

Best bet is, if you have a USB CD/DVD-RW then use it. It's quick, easy, painless and you won't have to arse around creating USB sticks, which as you already know, can be frustrating and error prone unless you know exactly what you're doing.